


the light is on the run

by unscriptedemily



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Fort Briggs, Gratuitous Use Of Fire Metaphors, Hurt/Comfort, Igloo Antics, M/M, RoyEd Gift Exchange, RoyEd Gift Exchange 2016, au where ed didn't leave the military, sometimes u just gotta use the word golden eighteen times in one sentence, what can i say, y eS i realise its. its 2017 now IM SORRY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 16:45:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9245744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unscriptedemily/pseuds/unscriptedemily
Summary: Roy and Ed, the icy wasteland of Drachma's wilderness, and a mission that goes ever-so-slightly downhill.





	

**Author's Note:**

> THIS is my RoyEd gift exchange fic for [sad-nikiforov](sad-nikiforov.tumblr.com) !! it's SO LATE like SO LATE and im so sorry i cannot describe how sorry i am hhhh i hope you like it at least aaaaaa <333  
> (also ed has no alchemy but still has his automail arm because....artistic licence? i dont have to justify myself i can do what i want)

  
  


Ice stretches out to the horizon, white fringed with pale grey arcing infinitely up and over. The perfect blankness is only occasionally broken by the black swoop of a bird cutting through the pale; charcoal slashes against the snow clouds. 

“ _ Fucking christ _ , it’s cold,” Ed is saying up ahead, a hunched crimson figure in the spitting flakes of snow, voice muffled by his bandana pulled up over his nose and whipped away on the wind. He’s not wrong-- Roy agrees, even: it  _ is _ fucking cold and he does want to turn back and take the fastest train back to Central City and his nice warm house; but Ed’s been complaining non-stop for the two hours they’ve been walking while Roy’s been manfully holding himself back,  _ despite  _ the hastily-wrapped bandage hiding the stinging pain in his arm, and honestly? It’s not helping.

Ed turns back towards Roy, eyes covered by snow goggles and bright coat flapping behind him like a streamer. 

“Hurry  _ up _ ,” Ed says. Roy takes a deep breath-- inhaling ice and sleet and a rush of freezing air-- and does not lose his temper.

“I’m conserving my energy, Fullmetal,” he says instead, pointedly. “Instead of racing ahead and getting lost, or injured, or running out of energy and losing even more time.”

“Fuck you,” Ed says, scowling, but he falls back into step with Roy. He is a small beacon of warmth and colour in the strange desolateness of the snow and sky. No one else is sight. This is a good thing, Roy reminds himself. They don’t  _ want  _ to run into anyone. 

“How long d’you think we got ‘til nightfall, anyway?” Ed says, squinting up at the impenetrable sky. 

Roy shakes his head. “Without the sun to navigate by and our watches frozen shut…”

“No way of knowing. Right. Gotcha.” Ed tugs his hood lower over his brow and sighs sharply. 

“Just keep walking,” Roy says, mostly for his own benefit. His feet had lost all feeling hours ago. Flame alchemist or no, he’s not sure if even  _ he  _ can do anything against--  _ this _ . “We’re bound to find something if we keep going in a straight line.”

“Fucked up logic,” Ed mutters, rubbing his hands together. The way his eyebrows tighten almost imperceptibly as he does so makes something like panic flare up within Roy. He tells himself it’s because they’ve already lost so many and anything could get worse, no matter how small the hurt--

“Are you alright?” he asks, casual as he can force himself to be, “Your automail?”

Ed looks away steadfastedly. “It’s fine, asshole,” he says. “Worry about yourself. Your nose looks, like, two seconds away from frostbite.”

Roy’s nose and cheeks have also been numb for hours. He waves this away. 

“I’m serious, E-- Fullmetal. If it’s bad, we can--,”

“We can  _ what,  _ Colonel?” Ed snaps, whipping round. Around them, the snow blows harder; icy shards merciless against the tiny slivers of unprotected skin visible on their faces. Even through his snow goggles, Ed’s fiery golden gaze cuts straight through the blizzard. “I fucking said it was fine and it  _ is,  _ but even if something did go wrong, what exactly is there to do about it? Nothing. So stop fucking  _ asking _ .”

Roy swallows. Almost laughably, his throat is dry. Surrounded by all this water, and he’s dehydrating. 

“It’s General, actually,” he says, because the downward angle of Ed’s shoulders worries him far more than it maybe should, and the resulting glare and flinging insults are enough to spark some semblance of warmth. 

 

After a while, the light has grown noticeably darker and the stretch of snow hasn’t become any less endless out before them. Roy is wondering whether it’s worth continuing, the infinite trudge, silence broken only by the crunch of their boots on ice-- when Ed makes the decision for them by throwing himself down and refusing to carry on.

“Shut the fuck up,” he tells Roy, and leans to sketch an effortlessly flawless transmutation circle in a flat patch of snow. “Get over here. Hurry  _ up,  _ asshole, before the snow covers it up.”

Roy obeys, moving to press his numb palms to the ground; the spark of alchemy flaring in his chest is a tiny, wonderful breath of relief and warmth; he closes his eyes for a moment just to bask in it. Then the spark catches, crackles; Roy holds the circle in his head like a prayer and feels the earth shift and bend beneath his hands. 

When he opens his eyes, a rough approximation of an igloo stands before them, and Ed’s eyes are heavy on his face. He turns, catches the golden gaze, the unmistakable flash of immeasurable wistfulness. 

“Not bad,” Ed says, just a moment too late. He cuts his eyes away, considering the igloo. “You still need more practice, though. Come on.”

 

Inside and shivering, Roy claps his hands together in a desperate attempt to shake some warmth into his distressingly waxy fingers. Ed is drawing another array in the middle of the floor, avoiding Roy’s gaze and tearing strips from the bottom of his coat. 

“There,” he says, nodding to the pile of fabric and the graceful, looping lines. “Do your thing before we both fucking freeze.” 

Roy only moves after a few seconds, after it’s become clear that Ed won’t meet his careful gaze. Once again he presses his fingertips to the edge of the array, feels the well of power and possibility pooling there, rising to meet his touch. This, he doesn’t have to guess at. Flames spring into being almost instinctually; they leap and lick hungrily at the scraps of cloth and Roy has to force himself away from the sudden beautiful warmth to help Ed in finding more flammable things to burn. 

Pocket lint, whatever fabric they can spare, fluff from inside their boots: they toss it into the flames and eventually they have enough for a small blaze; enough 

to sit back for several long minutes and just enjoy. 

 

“God, that’s good,” Roy says, stretching his hands out over the flames. Ed scoots closer, eyes closed, firelight playing over his face: unfairly irresistible. Roy allows himself exactly five seconds of helpless  _ fuck, he’s beautiful _ before he looks away, back into the fire. It’s safer by far to stare into the glowing, curling ends of ashy burned-out cloth, to breathe in the doubtless toxic smoke. 

“We can’t rest for long,” says Ed, eyes open now and flames flickering, reflected in them all orange and gold. “It’s-- fuck, it’s already been too long. Al…”

“They’re fine,” says Roy. He knows this, at least, with some amount of certainty. “Alphonse may not wear the armour anymore, but he can certainly take care of himself.”

“And this shit’s prob’ly just a normal day out for Hawkeye,” Ed agreed, and sighs. “Yeah, I know. Doesn’t mean I’m not gonna worry about them though.”

Roy can’t argue with that. Riza may be the most terrifyingly competent person he’s even met in his life, and he may be more than a little scared shitless of Alphonse Elric, but he’d still have to be made of stone not to feel uneasy at the prospect of them alone in the blizzard while rebel troops roam around the wilderness looking for them. 

They sit there for a while, basking in the warm glow of their makeshift fire. Roy notices the way Ed traces absentminded arrays in the snow next to him, the way his half-lidded eyes are troubled and distant as he stares deep into the flames. Roy wonders if the dancing twisting threads of orange are all he’s seeing. 

 

“Do you miss it?” he asks eventually, when they’re holding their bandanas out over the fire to dry them and Ed’s hair is curling gently at the ends in a way that is so heartbreakingly endearing that Roy needs a distraction right now before he goes mad.

The look Ed sends him is guarded. “Miss what?”

Roy gestures to the fire, the lines in the snow. “Alchemy.”

 

Ed stares hard at him for a second, and Roy swears he sees the exact moment Ed manages to hold himself back from taking a swing. 

 

“Of course I fucking miss it,” he bites out. “Of all people I’d have thought  _ you’d  _ have stopped getting your kicks from asking stupid fucking questions, Mustang--,”

And he’s right; of course he is. Roy shakes his head. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, “blame it on the injury, if you like.”   
Ed glances at the crude bandage on Roy’s arm, the small bloom of blood. “That’s nothing,” he says, but the edge has all but gone from his voice and the light-- and, could it be, something like concern-- has returned to his eyes. “Stop being such a fuckin’ baby.”

“It’s more than  _ nothing _ , surely,” says Roy with a half-grin; it’s surreal, all these . “Granted, it’s not high up on my list of serious injuries, but…”

“You have a list?” Ed says. He leans back, eyebrows raised. “Shit, I don’t even remember most of ‘em, I’d never be able to make a list.”

 

Across the flames, Ed’s face is illuminated deeper gold than usual. The white scar above his eyebrow shows up bright against his burnished skin. He reaches up, brushing metal fingers over it when he sees Roy looking. 

“Yeah, this one wouldn’t even be on there,” Ed says. “Too much competition.”

Roy doesn’t know why he does it-- maybe all the snow and walking is interfering with his decision making skills-- but he peels off his gloves and holds out his hands, palms up. The twin patches of scar tissue in the center of his hands where Bradley’s swords pinned him to the ground on the Promised Day are bright, bright white, as white as snow. 

“These are fairly high up, I’d say,” he muses. “You?”

Ed squints at him. “Some ‘show you mine, show me yours’ type bullshit, huh, Mustang?” He shakes his head. “Eh. I mean, that’s bad, but check out where I got impaled.”

And with that, he lifts up the bottom of his shirt to reveal the expanse of uneven scar tissue across his abdomen. For a moment, Roy is distracted by the flat muscles under his skin; the years of training that have led to this perfection-- and the years of violence that necessitated it. He’d known about the incident, of course. But Ed’s report on what happened had been an offhand sentence _ :  _ something like  _ and then Kimblee collapsed the mine shaft and I got stabbed but don’t worry, I’m an alchemical genius.  _ This….is different. 

 

“Shit, Ed,” he says at last, and Ed yanks his shirt back down, scowling. 

“Fuck’s sake,” he mutters, then, “Don’t. Don’t be all…  _ oh no, poor you, poor Ed, that must’ve hurt;  _ I don’t...just. Stop.”

“I wasn’t going to,” says Roy. “I swear. I was just going to say...well. Something along the lines of ‘this sucks’.”

Ed’s eyebrow raise is a thing of great and terrible beauty. 

“Never do that again.” he says. Roy smiles. 

 

“It does, though,” he says. “The fact that you were put in that position in the first place. You’re incredible, and an absolute genius, though you know that already; the fact that you survived and walked away from it is a testament to the inimitable strength that’s become something of a legend around Central. That doesn’t mean It’s not terrible, and inexcusable.” Roy watches the snow around the fire melt and pool. The heat of the flames is nothing compared to Ed’s eyes on him. Roy says, “I promise you I’m going to do everything in my power to stop it from ever happening again.” 

Ed is looking at him with his face all screwed up, something critical in his eyes. 

“You really mean that,” he says. Roy blinks. 

“Of course.”

Ed shakes his head, a flurry of gold. Light glances off his hair and shines over the glistening ice walls. “No, like… I knew you meant it. Obviously. It’s just weird to  _ see  _ it on your dumb face.” He looks away. Roy feels the loss of the weight of his gaze like something deep in his chest has suddenly taken flight and left him bereft and freezing. “You’re gonna have a shitty time in office, you know that?” Ed cracks an ironic grin, like dawn breaking over a lush horizon. “You’re way too--  _ good _ . Lucky for you that you got Captain Hawkeye looking out for you.”

“I am,” says Roy slowly. “Did you just pay me a compliment?”

Ed frowns deeply at him. “Fuck you. You did it first; equivalent exchange.”

Equivalent exchange. It’s strange, it really is, how widely and thoroughly that one phrase governs every atom of Ed’s code; how it’s stretched, now, to touch Roy’s life as well. How he finds it bright like stumbling upon treasure on the ground, in his head when he’s signing off on reports or finance paperwork or passing orders. 

“Well. Thank you.” He means it. Ed knows he means it. 

“Yeah,” he says, gruff. “You’re welcome.”

Roy smiles, wide, and is surprised by how  _ true  _ it is, how easy it’s become to smile around Ed-- whether it’s in the office, Ed sitting on a desk with his legs crossed, hair tied back in a careless tumble, cracking jokes and making Havoc laugh; or here, in the silence of the snow and the faint crackling of the alchemical fire, honest and almost unbearably  _ real _ . 

“No thank you for me?” he asks, light teasing, because he’s too far gone  _ not  _ to.

Ed just casts him a  _ shut up  _ look. “No,” he says, “‘cause your damn flattery doesn’t deserve a thank you.”

It is like a cold shock to the lungs. Roy holds Ed’s gaze. 

“It’s not flattery. I mean it.” He sits back, pulling his gloves back on. “No thanking needed; just accept the compliment, Fullmetal. That’s an order.”

“Oh, because framing it like an order is  _ really  _ gonna make me wanna comply,” says Ed. His eyes glitter. He breathes out. “Whatever. You’re illogical; I’m used to it. Think the storm’s stopped yet?”

 

His tone says:  _ end of conversation _ . Roy doesn’t push it, just holds his gaze a second longer before he moves to peer through the small opening left in the front of the shelter. 

  
  


Later, when the fire has waned and is growing smaller by the minute: “I do miss it.” Ed is lying on his back with his arms crossed under his head, looking at the ceiling. Roy turns to him. The wall is icy at his back, but it doesn’t melt. To achieve this, Ed had drawn an array on it and Roy had activated it. He still doesn’t understand how it works, even after Ed’s annoyed and lengthy explanation, and he’s too tired to ask again. So he just leans against it, and looks at Ed, silhouetted in flamelight. 

“It’s like, it was this...fucking  _ intrinsic  _ part of my life, you know?” Ed says. The only sounds are their quiet breathing, and the faint storm outside. His face twists. “And now it’s just. Gone. And I’d do it again, I’d give it all up again in a fucking heartbeat, of  _ course  _  I would, it was for Al.” The bone-deep conviction in his voice and gaze are ten times more than enough; Roy could never doubt him, never has and never will because for all Ed misses alchemy, he did it for his little brother, and he’s do it again with no hesitation. Everyone who’s ever seen them together knows that. Everyone who’s ever heard Ed speak about Alphonse knows that. 

 

“I know,” says Roy quietly. Ed nods. 

 

“Yeah,” he says, “So, it’s not-- it’s not  a question of-- of whether I  _ regret  _ it or some shit, because I don’t and I never will, it’s just, like...Sometimes I still find myself clapping. Just out of instinct. I’ll be at home, and maybe my coffee’ll go cold or something and I’ll just fucking--,”

He claps, softly. For a moment, Roy is breathless, the sudden involuntary  _ what if _ momentarily kicking his heartbeat into overdrive, but of course, nothing happens. Just a sound and a shadow, passing over Ed’s face like water pouring into a bowl. “Yeah,” Ed says again, bitter. He cracks a grin. “Nothing, right? And it’s so fucking  _ dumb,  _ because every. Fucking. Time. I still get this fucking flicker of hope like  _ maybe,  _ just  _ maybe  _ this time it’ll work. Even though I  _ know _ what I gave up and I  _ know  _ what the deal was and I’m glad I did it. I still...dream about it. Arrays and energy and calculations and mostly just the  _ feeling _ , you know? Like, the spark and the reaction and being inside that circle of blue light…” 

He trails off, and his breathing fills the air instead, uncharacteristically gentle; in and out, the rise and fall of his chest. Roy touches the edge of the circle of melting snow around the fire. 

“You’ve still got all the knowledge,” he says, not quite a question, and Ed nods, not quite listless. “You saved so many people,” says Roy, unsure what exactly it is he’s trying to say but struck by the need to say it anyway, “I know you didn’t do it for them, and I know never meant to get caught up in it all-- but, Ed. You saved  _ so many  _ people, and yes, your alchemy was part of it, I won’t deny that. But you’ve always been so much more than just the Fullmetal Alchemist. You’re terrifyingly intelligent, and fiercely caring towards the people you love.” Ed is looking at him, a frown forming, and Roy barrels on: “You’re determined to the point of absurdity-- I heard about what happened with Kimblee, and I was  _ there  _ for the final battle. Even if I couldn’t see what was going on at the time, Riza filled me in later. That’s not just alchemy. That’s  _ you _ \-- you carry that determination with you in everything you do; I’ve seen it. I still see it. And...even if you can’t do alchemy anymore, you’re still a goddamn genius, Ed. I have absolutely zero doubts that you’ll continue to be the same terrifying, caring, determined, incredibly frustratingly person you have always been.”

 

For a long time, Ed is completely silent. Roy doesn’t look away from him, and Ed holds his gaze, something flickering in his eyes that isn’t firelight and isn’t anger, either; some unknown emotion that Roy has never seen on his face before. 

Finally, he lets out a short breath, a half-smile. “No wonder you’re gunning for Fuhrer,” he says, shaking his hair back, “People pay you for those motivational speeches or what?”

 

“As of so far, I haven’t been paid,” Roy says, because the look in Ed’s eyes says it’s safer to go along with it than to press him further. “Why, do you think I could make a career out of it?”

“Sure,” says Ed. “Start off small, work your way up. I hear that’s how shit works in real life.”

“Not that you’d know,” says Roy, with just the edge of a smirk, “Seeing as how you started off small and stayed that wa--,”

 

The snowball is too fast for him to dodge-- Ed’s speed and the smallness of the enclosed space conspire to create an environment completely unsuited for a snowball fight, at least of you’re on the losing side-- and it’s all Roy can do to get his hand up in front of his face before it hits him, ice and freezing water spraying everywhere. A lump of snow worms past his collar and drips down his neck. Ed smiles at him in a way that would be charming if there weren’t so many teeth. 

 

“That,” says Roy, very seriously, “Was a mistake.”

“Oh, yeah?” says Ed, and scoops up another handful. “That a threat, Mustang?”

And oh, it’s been so long since Roy let himself go; everything in him is saying  _ bad idea, bad idea _ but there’s something about Ed that makes him mischievous and besides. Above all else, his most closely guarded secret is that on the inside, at the core of his very being, Roy Mustang is a  _ child _ . 

“Threats are for the unrefined,” says Roy carelessly. “ _ That _ , my dear Edward, was a promise.”

  
  


Sleeping in wet clothes,  _ on snow _ for that matter, is an almost foolproof way to catch pneumonia, or hypothermia, or frostbite, or any other number of terrible illnesses from cold. Luckily, Ed is a genius and heat pretty much Roy’s  _ thing _ , so they manage to work out an array for drying their clothes and another for melting all the snow and finally, they’re huddled under their coats on hard, uncomfortable, but blessedly dry dirt. 

 

“I think I would’ve preferred the snow,” Ed mutters, wriggling in discomfort. “There’re rocks, like,  _ everywhere. _ ”

“That’s a shame,” Roy murmurs drowsily. “I’m perfectly comfortable over here. I suppose you’ll just have to be quiet and deal with it--,”

“Fuck you,” Ed says and Roy cracks an eye open to see the glare Ed is levelling at ihm. It’s truly a wonder to behold. “You’re an asshole.”

“An asshole I may be, but I’m also your commanding officer. I don’t want to order you to go to sleep, Edward, but I want you to know that if push comes to shove…”

Ed makes a dismissive noise. “Like I’ve ever listened to any of your fuckin’ orders in my  _ life _ ,” he says. “‘Sides. I’ve got, what, three months left on my service, tops? Soon as I can I am  _ out  _ of here, Mustang. And if all that shit you were spouting earlier is true, you prob’ly wanna stay in my good books for when I decide to use my genius to make the world a better place or whatever.”

 

“What are you going to do, once your term is up?” Roy asks, tugging his coat more firmly around his shoulders. 

Ed flops to lie on his back, staring up at the icy ceiling. “Dunno,” he says. “Al wants to go back to Xing, to learn more about medical Alkahestry, so...I’ll probably go with him. Go see Ling, I guess.” 

“You don’t sound terribly enthused about that idea,” Roy says.

Ed sighs. It goes on for a long time. “Yeah, well. I don’t know. I don’t know what I want to do. Winry’s looking at some pretty badass automail organ transplantation research and shit, that’d be fucking cool. Combining alchemy and automail...that’s something I’d be down with pursuing. She’s all for it, too. And there’s always research. Or teaching.”

“Teaching,” Roy repeats. He can’t imagine-- or, wait, that’s not true. He can  _ definitely  _ imagine Ed as a teacher, arguing with the school board and swearing in front of the students, but somehow never getting fired because the results at the end of the year are phenomenal. 

Ed wrinkles his nose. “Not, like,  _ kids _ ; I wouldn’t know what the fuck to do with them. But maybe, like...lecturing. At the university in Central. That wouldn’t be for a while, though,” he adds, “because I don’t care what Al says, I think I’d be  _ shit  _ at it. And also, I’ve spent my entire fucking life making decisions. I want a fucking  _ break _ .”

Roy laughs. “That’s fair,” he says. “For the record, I think you’d be a great lecturer. And you can always pursue independent research projects on the side. After your long and indulgent vacation period, of course.”

Ed is rolling his eyes. Roy knows this, because the air seems to take on a particular quality whenever Ed rolls his eyes or does something sarcastically. It’s a skill, to bend the way the atmosphere responds to you just through your moods. Then again, Ed’s always been the kind of person who changes a room just by being in it. 

 

“What about you, anyway?” Ed asks. “I mean, assuming we get out of this frozen wasteland and actually make it to some kind of diplomatic meeting or whatever. What’s the next step?”

 

The fire has burned low, a chill settling in, but Roy is still warm, still hanging on to those last remnants of heat with his fingertips. It helps that every time Ed looks at him, his eyes seem to carry their own grazing warmth. 

 

“The next step,” Roy echoes. It’s a fair question. This mission going so wildly wrong wasn’t entirely unprecedented; one thing Roy’s learned from his years in the military is to expect the worst in every situation, no matter what it is, but still. Assuming they get out of here alive… “We’ll make our apologies to the Drachman emperor and negotiate a peace treaty as we were sent to do. Then we’ll go home, I’ll be promoted and you’ll continue to incur uniform infractions until your term of service is finally complete.”

 

“The uniform fucking sucks,” Ed mutters. “And it’s been eight fucking  _ years _ ; it’d be weirder if I  _ did  _ start wearing the blues. Alchemy or no,” he adds bitterly, balling himself into a coat cocoon, “I’m still a  _ symbol. _ Me and my ‘uniform infractions’ earned you  _ fuckloads  _ of recognition. You owe me at least five of your promotions, Mustang.”

Roy laughs, and it’s alright, isn’t it, to blame his breathless giddiness on the snowball fight and the stress of the attack earlier and being separated and trekking however many miles in deep snow, rather than Ed’s nearness, soaking into him the way smoke clings to clothes?

“Five is a little excessive, Fullmetal,” he says, “Perhaps two is more realistic.”

“Fuck off. Four at  _ least _ , you bastard.”

“Two.”

“Four! You’re supposed to change your fucking number, Mustang, or maybe you don’t know how bargaining works, being dumb as shit--,”

“You’re right,” says Roy thoughtfully, “I tend to rely on my flawless judgement to get me through difficult situations, rather than bartering like a certain uncivilised, smaller-than-average officer of the Amestrian military.”

Rather than reply, Ed kicks him in the shin. Hard. While Roy is hissing in pain, Ed rolls over to face the wall. 

“Shut up and go to sleep, asshole,” he says, vaguely threatening. “Or next time I’ll use the left foot.”

“Yes,  _ sir _ ,” Roy murmurs into his coat, but not too loudly. 

 

* * *

 

                    -- BEFORE \--

 

The wind whipped harsh shards of ice into the windows of the vehicle. In the back, sitting opposite Roy, Ed and Al argued good-naturedly about the alchemical composition of the glass for it to be able to withstand the force of the storm outside. Next to Roy, Riza went over the dossier file for the meeting: names, titles, customs, etiquette. Roy should have been doing the same. Outside, the whirling flakes were captivating, a churning white tempest shot through with the occasional flash of grey; gaps where the barren distant mountains show through as dark flecks amidst the snow. Roy kept having to drag his attention away from the whirling snow outside and back to the page in front of him, much to Riza’s chagrin. 

“I’m  _ so _ glad you’re Amestris’ last fuckin’ hope, General,” Ed said, pausing in his conversation with his brother to send Roy a scathing look, “Getting distracted by snowflakes while on a, and I quote,  _ ‘incredibly important diplomatic mission that could very well determine the fate of the country’s foreign relations policies forever, Fullmetal _ ’.” He delivered the imitation in what Roy thought was a rather unfair approximation of his voice. He looked over lazily, one eyebrow raised-- a classic Mustang Look of Consideration-- and leaned back comfortably in his seat. 

“Thank you,” he said. “If we’re all taking part, I’ll say that  _ I’m  _ glad you’re a member of the military instead of, say, a comedian specialising in impressions. Your skills in that particular area are rather unfortunately lacking.”

Ed sat up straight, the familiar blaze flickering into life in his eyes. Roy returned his glare with a serene gaze, sat back, and waited for the outburst. Alphonse, diagonally opposite, turned a page of his book--  _ Theory of Alkahestry and its Connection to Xingian Mythology _ \-- and pulled his legs up to curl in his seat in a more comfortable position, and Riza started cleaning her gun. 

“Oh, fucking  _ clever _ , Mustang,” Ed said, and the amount of vitriol in his voice could have very likely annihilated a small-to-medium sized planet. “Doesn’t change the fact that you’re a massive fucking hypocrite. I thought the only reason I’m here is ‘cause of how fucking  _ significant  _ this mission is supposed to be?”

“Not the  _ only  _ reason,” said Roy mildly, “Although your status as a symbol of peace, glory, etcetera is certainly useful on this foray into an uncertain and turbulent political landscape, your  _ impressions  _ are by far the most--,”

“Stop fucking talking about the impressions, you two-faced ratbastard  _ dick _ \--,”

“Brother--,”

“ _ Sir _ \--,”

 

Two sharp gunshots cracked through the air. Everyone dived instinctively for cover; Ed yanked Al down hard as Roy was surrounded, just for a moment, by hot sand, by the acrid smell of a burning town. He blinked, Riza’s grip on his arm and her steady, clear gaze anchoring him, and all at once the world span once more. Snow and ice rained down in a steady barrage. On three sides: gunfire. 

 

Ed, crouching low just a hair’s breadth away from Roy on the cramped floorspace of the military issue vehicle, spat out several impressive curses, eyes narrowed. 

“The driver,” Al said, grim faced. “Is he dead?”

Slowly, Riza moved to the nearest window, gun aimed steady and true in the direction of the bullets. “Check. I’ll cover you.”

Ed looked pointedly at Roy. “That means you. Asshole.”

“That’s  _ General  _ Asshole to you,” Roy remembered to say, and raised himself up enough to look through the clear partition between the backseat and the front driver’s seat. 

The driver was slumped awkwardly in his seat, windscreen shattered, a splash of red on the glass next to him. Carefully, Roy slid the partition window across and reached through to press two fingers to his neck. Nothing. He shook his head. 

Then: “Riza,” he said, glancing up and, oh, hell; “Movement ahead. And by that I mean three heavily armed trucks.”

She was up and pushing him out of the way in an instant. “Rebels,” she said, eyes trained on the trucks and their flags flying the colours of one of the Drachman fringe groups. Roy’s mind raced as he tried desperately to recollect what he knew about them. Bradley supporters, resistant to the new diplomatic alliance,  _ strongly  _ against all of Grumman’s-- and Roy’s, for that matter-- beliefs and policies… 

Riza motioned to the door. “Get out and stay low.”

“I can’t  _ believe _ we’re being fucking ambushed,” Ed said as Alphonse pushed open the door. “This is completely--  _ fuck _ -!”

They’re surrounded, at least on two sides, because as soon as the door slides open there is a burst of gunfire and they throw themselves to the ground. Ed moves in front of his brother automatically, and in the distance Roy could make out another truck careening forwards over the snow: he didn’t hesitate. He snapped, and the stream of bright flame momentarily lights up the landscape. Steam billowed then dissipated almost immediately where the heat melted the snow mid-flurry. Shouts of alarm rose from the distance where the trucks crested the hill. Ed cut him a sharp glance and Roy shook his head. 

“I aimed for the ground,” he said quietly. “No one is injured.”

The look Ed gave him was unreadable, or nearly; something like gratitude filled his eyes but more than that, understanding. It lasted a fraction of a second before Ed and Al had exchanged one of those trademarked Elric Brothers Silent Eye Contact Conversations, and Ed had leaped out of the car without a backwards glance, Alphonse at his side. Riza fired, fired again, reloaded. 

“Five in front,” she called. Roy peered into the distance. 

“Three on this side,” he said, and turned to see through the other window. It must be comical, he thought, distracted; one car a dark splotch in the midst of a white wasteland, and converging on all sides, heavy-duty snow vehicles crawling forwards like wolves. “Another one-- no, two-- on the right,” he said. Riza shot him a swift glance. 

“Communications?” she asked. 

“Down,” Al replied from where he and Ed are drawing circles in the snow. “Not too much, brother--,”

“I know, I know,” Ed said, and sat back. “Alright. Go.”

Alphonse leaned forwards, and pressed his palms to the snow. All around them, the ice--  _ flared _ . 

Arcing rays of vivid, electric blue; pure energy and Roy would never, ever get used to 

this, the sheer  _ power  _ of it. Doing alchemy yourself was one thing. Watching an Elric brother use it was...something else entirely. 

One hundred yards away, the rock beneath the snow leapt up, effortless; a huge, flawless wall, a barricade between them and their attackers. 

Ed punched the air, whooping. Roy only realised that he was smiling fondly at him when Alphonse, climbing past, shot him a knowing look. 

“How long will it hold them?” he asked hurriedly, schooling his features. Ed shrugged, hoisting himself back inside. 

“Depends,” he said. “I mean, theoretically it could withstand a tank, but if they’ve got alchemists of their own then, like…”

“It depends how strong they are,” said Al. “It buys us time, but not a lot. Captain?”

Riza nodded. “We need to get in contact with Feury back at Briggs,” she said. “Can you get the comms lines back up?” She directed the question at Ed and Al, who glanced at each other: Elric Brothers Telepathy. Infallible. 

“Sure,” said Al. “Brother, you spent a few hours taking a radio apart the other day, didn’t you?” 

“Why?” asked Roy as Ed nodded. He rolled his eyes. 

“I was  _ bored _ ,” he said, scowling, and scrambling past to take the proffered radio. 

“You were cranky because the Cretan place wasn’t delivering,” Al corrected. Ed flipped him off without looking. 

“I like Cretan food!” he said. “Fucking sue me, Al.” He turned the radio over in his hands, nose wrinkled in concentration.He didn’t seem to notice how close he was to Roy suddenly, the imperceptible hitch in Roy’s breathing.  _ I should have stayed back at base _ , he thought wildly.  _ They don’t need me. Riza could’ve carried out this whole mission by herself and it would’ve gone flawlessly; she doesn’t need me at all; if I ran, I could probably make it past those rebels-- _

“This is an old model,” he said. “Al, d’you--?”

“Yep,” said Al, without waiting for the sentence to finish. Elric Brother Telepathy. Roy looked at Riza. She sighed. 

The explosion almost didn’t register because it happened nearly in tandem with  Al pressing his fingertips together and touching the polished wood of the radio-- no clap, no unnecessary drama; so very unlike his brother--  and then everyone was moving.

“Fuck!” says Ed, “Fucking rebel alchemists--,”

The walls on each side have crumbled, crackling with blue energy visible even from this distance. The vehicles start moving again. 

“I mean, technically we could be classified as rebel alchemists, brother,” Al pointed out, even as he knelt to press his hands to the snow again: rock and ice lurches, shudders; the trucks tip and roll. Fire, bright on the snow. Staggering forms, indiscernible shouted commands. 

“Not anymore, we can’t.” said Roy. “The government fairly adores us, now. Makes a nice change.”

“Yeah, if you’re lookin’ for a promotion, I’ll bet it does,” Ed muttered, sketching another array in the sand. “Here, Al.”

A spray of bullets hit their car and Riza dived through to the back. 

“Everybody out,” she said, urgency colouring her words, and no one tried to argue. When they were lined up, backs against the car, Riza handed Ed a gun. “Just in case,” she said. He drew in a short breath and gave her an unreadable look. Al touched his arm. 

“Just in case, brother,” he repeated. Ed took it. The dark metal looked strange in his hand, even though Roy  _ knew  _ he’d been trained how to fire a weapon. 

“Now that we’re all suitably armed,” said Roy, tearing his eyes away from the gun in Ed’s grip, “I’d say a plan is in order.”

“Oh,  _ now  _ he says we need a plan,” Ed muttered, because making snide remarks is in his blood and he couldn’t stop even if he wanted to. 

“I suggest we split up,” said Riza, in a tone that said  _ now is not the time for bickering _ . “Edward and Alphonse, can you take this side and the back?” 

“Absolutely. Come on, brother.” Al tugged Ed up and together they moved around to the back of the car. Even Ed moved soundlessly, and Roy could hear faint, faint scraping sounds as they immediately started constructing arrays, wordless. Riza glanced at Roy, clear-eyed. He nodded. 

_ I’ll take the front _ . 

As Riza disappeared around the other side, Roy kept his eyes trained ahead of them: the soldiers, their flags flying in the wind and they were so  _ convinced  _ that what they were doing was right, that they were doing what was best for their country. God, they should have come a different route. 

Roy snapped his fingers. And again. And again. 

Each time he tried to aim as close to the ground as possible, and his aim was  _ very  _ good. The trucks tipped, careening sideways; soldiers jumped back and Roy thought maybe, maybe he wouldn’t have to kill anyone after all. If they could just stay scared, maybe they’d just-- turn around. Go home. Try again another day. 

 

But life, of course, didn’t work that way. 

There were so many of them, and they just kept coming, and no matter how many times Roy snapped his fingers eventually something would break-- and it did. One moment Roy was sending flames racing over the ice to a group getting just a  _ little  _ too close, and the next he was drenched to the fucking skin, gloves well and truly saturated and dripping. He swore, dipping into his pocket for his lighter, but the momentary lull was all it took for one rebel to poke their head out of the truck’s window, take aim, and pull the trigger. 

 

Roy was already moving when he saw the man lean out, diving to one side and flicking the lighter open even as he fell-- but fast as his reflexes were, a bullet was faster. It hit him in the arm, a burning line of pain. The lighter caught. Teeth gritted, Roy tore his mind away from the searing in his arm, and focused. All he needed was a spark. 

 

* * *

 

Ed wakes up warm and cosy and not the slightest fucking bit interested in regaining consciousness. Something cold and wet hits his head and he manages a mumbled  _ f’ck off,  _ and burrows deeper into the warm squishy whatever wrapped around him.

God, it’s cold outside this bubble of delicious soupy warmth here. He shivers. The arm around him tugs him closer, emitting a sleepy murmur, and he relaxes into it, sighing. Fuck mornings. Fuck getting up for work or...whatever the fuck he’s meant to be doing today. Just let him stay here, all bundled and cosy and shit,  _ forever _ . 

 

Wait. 

 

Ed’s eyes open, very slowly.  _ Oh.  _ Roy’s chest is directly in front of his nose. He blinks at it, tracks the sleepy rise and fall of Roy’s breathing. The first coherent thought that really registers is  _ he’s really warm.  _ And then he starts thinking about, like, physical attributes and their connection with your specialised branches of alchemy, ‘cause it would make sense, wouldn’t it, for the Flame Alchemist to have a high-than-average body heat; except  _ no,  _ not really, not in any scientific way, so maybe the Gate has something to do with it--?

“Ed?” 

 

And oh,  _ fuck _ . Roy’s morning voice is… kind of,  _ really  _ fucking sexy, but also  _ cute _ , in this endearing, honest kind of way that makes Ed remember that underneath all the suaveness and the smirking, Roy Mustang is pretty much just a huge  _ dork _ . His morning voice, sleep-rumbled, blinking disorientatedly as he leans back-- the inches of space this creates between them let in a rush of freezing air, and Ed hisses and yanks him back in-- to take in his surroundings; his hair all mussed and sticking up in places;  _ god…  _ Ed’s fucked. He’s so, so fucked.  _ Roy _ ally fucked, even. 

Roy clears his throat. “Good...morning, Fullmetal.”

“Not good,” Ed grits out, shielding his eyes from whatever  _ blinding  _ fucking light is attempting to worm its way into his retinas, “ _ Fucking freezing _ .”

“Ah, yes,” says Roy, and this time he sounds amused, and more normal. “Fucking freezing morning to you, too. Would you like to move?”

Ed considers this. One the one hand, he’s warm here-- Roy is  _ warm _ \-- and vaguely comfortable, and it’s dark inside Roy’s coat, so his eyes aren’t being fucking burned to cinders by evil,  _ evil  _ rays of reflected sunlight. Also, the coat is doing a good job at hiding his flaming cheeks, which bring him nicely to the  _ other  _ hand: he’s fucking cuddling. With Roy. Roy Mustang, smarmy-bastard General of Central City, next in line to the Fuhrer throne or whatever; in any case he’s fucking  _ snuggling  _ with his absolute  _ asshole _ CO, and that’s…. Interesting. 

He moves, shuffling backwards, and steals Roy’s coat tugging it over the top of him. Problem solved. 

“When I said move,” Roy says, and through the coat Ed can hear him shifting in place, sitting up, “I really meant  _ get up _ , Fullmetal.”

“Fuck yourself,” Ed tells him, drowsy, and burrows further into the coat. It smells like Roy, which makes a lot of sense considering it belongs to him, and it’s thick and insulated and Ed just really needs some goddamn  _ sleep _ . 

“Not with you in the room, surely,” Roy murmurs, and it’s quiet enough that it probably wasn’t meant to be heard, and Roy’s silence afterwards is shocked enough that he probably hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but fucking  _ christ  _ he certainly did. Ed kicks the coat off of him. He levels a finger and points it at Roy’s face, which is frozen in-between masks with just a flash of  _ real _ Roy, Roy-Roy, who is young and fiercely caring and has a dumbass sense of humour. 

“Be quiet,” he says, still pointing at Roy. “Just...shut the fuck up. Okay? I’m too tired for this shit.”

“Yes, sir, certainly, sir,” says Roy, and Ed groans and pulls the coat back over his head again, thumping back onto the cold, icy ground. 

  
  
  


They finally exit the makeshift, alchemized igloo at...well, Roy isn’t sure of the time because he’d discovered that State Alchemist pocket watch had frozen shut, and by the time he’d precision-melted it open again, the mechanism was shot to pieces. Ed had offered to fix it, but he’d had that particular Elric-brand glint of mischief in his eye that said  _ I will almost certainly return this to you covered in engraved drawing of dicks _ , so Roy had graciously refused. So they’re outside, igloo collapsed back into snow and the remains of their fire buried deep under it, and they don’t know what the time is but they  _ do  _ know they need to get moving before Roy’s nightmares start coming true, and Riza or Alphonse or both end up captured, or mortally wounded, or dead. 

 

Now, Ed shifts on his feet, looking up at the gap in the clouds; light plays over his skin and in that moment the air itself is in love with him, caught up in him and like a spark catching and engulfing a tiny piece of kindling into ash, Roy feels himself burn. The walls of this well he’s fallen into are scraped smooth; no handholds, nothing to pull himself out of it and if he’s going to continue this metaphor he might as well say it: the tiny dry twig devoured by the flame may end up in ruined twisted ashes, yes; but in those final pure moments before it burns, it  _ glows _ . It is shrouded in light, bathed in it. Even as the fire carves and burns a broken path through it, from the centre of that flame the world is suddenly lit by golden light and warmth-- searing, yes. But beautiful. Incredible. 

  
Roy doesn’t know what the scariest part of it all is: that this can and will ruin him, or being  _ glad _ about it. 

 

“Alright,” says Ed, oblivious to Roy’s desperate internal monologuing beside him, “This way.”

“How do you know?” Roy asks. Ed shoots him a disdainful glance-- ouch-- and gestures at the sky, open before them.    
“Briggs is to the south. That direction.” Roy wants to ask how Ed knows, if he has a compass buried somewhere, but then he remembers the stories Alphonse has told the office about being stranded on a deserted island for thirty days when they were kids, and decides he’s better off leaving it as just another enigma. Ed is shrugging, setting off. “I mean, we probably won’t  _ get  _ there, but the plan was to hopefully meet in the middle somewhere, right?”

  
  


* * *

  
                    -- BEFORE \--

 

Roy became aware some time later-- he had no way of knowing how  _ much  _ time; the sun was an indistinct blur covered over by fuzzy grey clouds-- of Ed leaning over him, brow furrowed in concern. There was a smudge of blood on his cheekbone. Without realising what he was doing, Roy reached up to wipe it away. Ed’s eyes went dark gold, and he didn’t move away. 

“You’re alive, then,” he said, and rolls his eyes when Roy tries and fails to struggle into a sitting position. “Woah, hey, calm down, bastard, you’re...injured. I think. I’m not really sure.”

Carefully, Ed gripped Roy’s arms and helped him to sit, leaning, against the side of the car, which had now tipped over onto its side. So really, Roy supposed; really, he was leaning against the  _ top  _ of the car. 

“What happened?” he asked, blinking snow out of his eyes and staring around. Gunfire rattled the air in the distance. Almost imperceptibly, Ed flinched. 

“I don’t know,” he said. “I was on the other side. You got hit, but it’s nothing, just a graze; I just found you on the floor.” He shrugged, tried for a convincing smile. “Maybe you’re just that incompetent. Wouldn’t put it past you.”

Roy shook his head, eyes narrowed against the glare. Where were his goggles? A few yards away, fire flickered over a truck, rolled onto its back like a dead beetle. His head pounded sharply. “I...don’t remember,” he said. “I got shot, I defended myself, and then… nothing.”

He pressed the tips of his fingers to his forehead. His gloves were still soaked through and freezing, now. He peeled them off, Ed watching as he flicked the lighter. Air compression, oxygen molecules and combustion equations; numbers ran through his head, second nature. Ed’s eyes were heavy on him as he snapped his fingers, hot air running over the gloves and drying them instantly.    
When he looked up, Ed was watching him with the sort of intensity than only he can manage-- the sort of intensity that explains his tendency to stay up for days on end to finish a book or a research project; the sort of intensity that makes him such a fiercely devoted brother and terrifying loyal friend. 

Because Roy was an idiot, and also very likely suffering from a concussion-- caused by god knows what-- he raised his eyebrows just slightly, tilted his head in the insouciant General Mustang brand smirk, tried, tested and true, and said, “See something you like?”

It was a testament to how much Ed had grown-- both figuratively and literally, much to Roy’s chagrin; sooner or later his supply of haha-you’re-short jokes were going to be rendered meaningless and trivial, because Ed had finally hit his much-anticipated growth spurt-- that he didn’t punch Roy in the face immediately and leave him there for dead. In fact, he barely reacted at  _ all _ , preferring to roll his eyes with that unique melodrama only he can muster, and heaving a colossal sigh. 

“No, not really,” he said. “I was just thinking about how you’re pretty much just a human hair dryer. C’mon, let’s go see if the captain needs any help.”

There is a series of gunshots in quick succession, and a yell of pain that definitely did not come from Riza. Roy peers round the car. “I don’t think that’s very likely.”

Ed stuck his head round, apparently unaware of the fact that doing so required him to hold onto Roy’s waist with one arm to achieve maximum leaning power without falling over; Roy held himself very still and tried to remember how to breathe. In and out; inflate and deflate;  _ don’t  _ keel over and die just because he’s touching you…

Riza lowered her gun, which was smoking slightly; regarded the weakly-moving bodies of her former opponents, and reloaded with scary efficiency. She glanced over, gestured  _ are you okay _ , to which Roy replied  _ just fine, also I’m exceedingly glad we're on the same side _ , which made her smile, wryly amused. 

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” Ed said. He sighed, leaning back against the upturned car. 

“How’s Alphonse doing?” Roy asked. Ed shrugged. 

“He’s fine, obviously. I wouldn’t have come over here if he wasn’t. Anyway, we need to move, like, now.”

Roy glanced behind him, following Ed’s meaningful gaze to the crest of a snowbank, and the flags just visible over the top. 

“Oh, hell,” he said.

“Well put, sir.” Riza stopped next to them, eyes sharp and calculating as she surveyed the area, gun held ready at her side. “There are a few rebel vehicles we could use to put some distance between us,” she said, “the only problem will be getting them working again.” 

“Brother and I can start them up,” said Al confidently, coming to a halt next to Ed. His cheeks were rosy, gloved hands snowy, looking for all the world as if he’d been in a fight armed with snowballs instead of incredibly dangerous and overwhelmingly powerful alchemy. Ed punches him lightly in the arm, the Edward Elric gesture of affection. 

“Yeah, sure,” he said, rolling his shoulders back in an unfairly distracting movement. Riza nodded. 

“Very good,” she said, brisk. “Then I suggest we split up. Alphonse, you and I can take this nearest one.” 

Which left Roy and Ed to take the other car. Alone. Together. Roy tries to widen his eyes in a  _ what the hell is this  _ expression at Riza without anyone noticing, which worked fine for a while because Ed was busy cracking his knuckles and glancing around to see which truck he wanted to steal, but then Alphonse gave him a very clear, very obvious  _ you are fooling exactly no one, General _ look, and Roy felt his insides wilt like a plucked flower. 

He cleared his throat. “If we get separated, make your way back to Briggs.”

Riza saluted crisply, and Alphonse gave him a sunny, but no less threatening, smile. Inside his head, Roy was very possibly having a meltdown. 

Was this… approval? Or was it just the two of them telling him in no uncertain terms to use this time to get his shit together and  _ communicate? _   
Probably the latter. Roy looked pleadingly towards Riza, and she fixed him with one last meaningful look before she turned away. Definitely the latter.    
Oh, god. 

“Excellent, captain,” said Roy, meaning  _ I would fire you right now if I didn’t know I’d be utterly, totally lost without you. And that's not even true because I would never fire you and you goddamn know it.  _ “Then we’ll see you on the other side.”

* * *

 

 

“I’m so hungry I’m going to keel over and  _ die _ ,” says Ed, kicking a lump of ice out of the way and watching it roll across gently across the snow before reaching the edge of the piste and tumbling to the rocky mountainside underneath. “Or just, like, throw myself off here. Embrace the beauty and terror of the natural world. Who gives a shit.”

“Me,” says Roy, reaching out as Ed walks over and leans with interest over the edge, “I give a shit. If you fall down there, I’ll have to climb down to see if you’re alive, out of unspoken CO etiquette. And I really don’t want to have to do that, Fullmetal; I happen to be rather fond of this outfit and I’m not about to ruin it scrambling down a mountain after your corpse.”

Ed sighs and scuffs his way back over to the middle of the path. “Whatever,” he says, tugging his hood lower over his face, “You won’t be my CO for much longer, Mustang.”

“Implying that once you quit the military, the first action you’ll take is to throw yourself down a  _ mountain _ ?” Roy asks. “I can’t imagine Alphonse would be very happy about that. Or the rest of my team, including myself. Or, indeed, the rest of Amestris. Or even, at risk of inflating your ego any further, the rest of the entire world.”

The path they’re walking on is relatively high up, ringed by the beautiful-but-dangerously-prone-to-avalanches mountains of the Amestris-Drachma border, and very, very icy. The wind whistles past them, malicious. Already, Roy is planning out various scenarios in his head: what to do if Ed falls, what to do if he falls, what to do if there’s an avalanche and they get buried, what to do if the path they’re walking on turns out to be an unstable overhang and they either fall or are forced to leap over the gap like improbable mountain gazelles.    
Unfortunately, he doesn’t get very far, because Ed has looked up and locked eyes with him, and his irises match the exact shade of the morning sunrise-- the moment when the first rays hit the clouds and for a brief, shining moment everything is tinged delicious honey-gold, and the faint flush in his cheeks from all the walking could be likened to the blushing clouds rising high over the horizon in the early hours.

“ _ No _ , you fucking-- what is  _ wrong  _ with you? I’m just giving you a heads up. That I’m quitting.” Ed’s hood has fallen back again-- possibly it is something to do with the silken texture of his hair preventing it from staying up-- and he flicks a look of deep annoyance upwards before sighing and shaking it the rest of the way off; his hair catches the light so beautifully Roy is about three seconds away from collapsing to his knees in the snow and weeping like a child.    
  
“Jesus,” Ed is saying, casting him the same annoyed look he’d aimed at his hood not moments before,  “What the fuck are you talking about, anyway;  _ inflating my ego _ , fucking christ  _ you’re  _ one to talk! If your ego was any bigger you’d eclipse the sun!”

“That’s poetic,” says Roy approvingly, “I didn’t think you had it in you, Fullmetal; beautiful use of metaphorical language there.”

And then he’s thinking about how there are not enough words in this  _ universe _ , in any language, to describe the way Ed looks now, framed by a frankly  _ stunning  _ mountain vista and clear afternoon sunlight pouring in shafts from between marshmallow clouds, sharp rocks lying in wait below the edge be damned. Or-- perhaps the sharp rocks and certain death-by-rolling-down-mountainside serve only to emphasise the ethereal quality of Edward Elric-- tired, pissed off, unwashed and in pain, yes, but still worthy of a Renaissance art gallery dedicated solely to him-- and the constant, subtle shifting reminders that Alphonse is not the only Elric brother who knows how to handle himself in a fight. Ed is  _ dangerous _ ; he’s loud and vivid and made of shooting stars and fireworks and bright, clashing colours, but in the years since the Promised Day, he has settled into himself like water calming on the surface of a pool, and the result is something altogether much more terrifying. His sharp edges have melded into hidden knives; no longer the bold, brash teenager of before he can be silent, threatening, a wide, dark grin and flashing teeth in moonlight.    
  
Roy thinks, with a deep pang of loss, that if Maes were around he’d have snapped Ed up for intelligence work by now, no doubt about it. 

 

“I’m just gonna stop talking to you,” Ed decides, “Maybe if I straight-up ignore you, I won’t have to--  _ get down _ !”

Ed’s palms hit Roy’s back and Roy would love to say it’s the element of the surprise that sends him sprawling and nothing else, but  _ jesus  _ Ed is fucking strong. He hits a snowdrift as he’s drawing breath to let out his cry of alarm and inhales a lungful of ice. He rolls, coughing, spraying snow; levers himself vaguely upright with his hands and looks wildly around, perhaps to  _ set Ed on fire _ \--

And the two rebels have appeared out of nowhere, camouflaged in all-white snowsuits except for their eyes, which gleam in the recesses of their hoods. Guns and knives, and Roy’s gloves are soaked  _ again _ but he’s already moving, shaking off the disorientation in favour of pulling the lighter out and flicking it open--

Ed sends one flying with a spinning kick-- the way he arcs and twists through the air is dazzling, honestly  _ dazzling _ \-- even as they fire a quick round, bullets spraying everywhere and Roy throws up his arms to shield his head as he dives behind the snowdrift. When this is over Roy is  _ never going near snow again _ . 

The other one is coming for Roy, twin knives flashing, but more importantly they’re wearing some kind of headset-- communicating with the rest of the group? Calling for backup? Ice seeping through his clothing and dripping down his neck; Roy was fed up before but now he’s really, really had enough. 

 

The wheel of the lighting spins, catches beneath the pad of his thumb. The array engraved into it glows momentarily, a warm, stunning blue, and Roy meets the rebel’s eyes through their hood and smiles. 

  
  


When it’s over, attackers on the floor moving weakly and Roy still sprawled against the snowdrift, they take a second to just stay there: Roy leaning up on one elbow, Ed standing breathing hard poised as if frozen in motion of flight, staring at each other.    
All around them, Roy becomes suddenly aware of the wind echoing through the valley, the movements of the air currents flowing past and through the mountains creating an eerie, hauntingly beautiful wailing sound. The mountains are singing. It’s breathtaking, in a strange way. Roy has goosebumps, and he’s not sure they’re just from the cold.     
  
Then Ed, in one fluid movement, reaches down and pulls Roy to his feet. 

“We make a good team,” says Ed. “That was fucking badass.”   
“It was mostly you,” Roy points out. “I’m not sure how badass lying on the floor could ever be, no matter how intense the background music is.”

Ed shakes this off with a careless wave of his hand. “Nah, you make it work. The elbow lean and the  _ cool, competent General Mustang  _ finger snap shit-- it works for you.”

Roy blinks at him. Ed gazes steadily back, just the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, and… 

“Why, Fullmetal,” says Roy slowly, lightly, carefully, “are you flirting with me?”

Ed’s almost-smile becomes a fully fledged smirk, and Roy takes a moment to marvel in horror at what the past eight years have created. 

“Looks like it, yeah,” Ed agrees easily, and his grin widens for a second longer before he’s turning away,surveying the groaning rebels on the ground before them. His eyes narrow. 

Roy bends and peels the headset carefully away from the one whose coat he’d set on fire-- it’s still smouldering, some way away, smoke peeling away and spiralling into the brisk air.

“You think they called for backup?” Ed asks, moving closer. 

“I think it’s very likely,” says Roy, holding it up between them so they can both listen in. 

There is static on the other end, then a sharp burst of sound; it’s in Drachman, which Roy had only recently learned, and muddled by poor signal, but he can make out enough to get the gist.

“ _ Reinforcements _ ,” says the voice on the other end, clear amidst the rest of the chatter. “ _ Coming…. Stay where you are…...confirm?” _

Ed covers the mic with a gloved hand. “Should we try misdirecting ‘em?” he says. Roy’s eyebrows quirk before he can stop them. 

“You speak Drachman?” Ed shrugs, like  _ yeah, of course.  _ Roy supposes it does make sense. Eventually, he will cease being surprised when Edward Elric reveals new skills. 

“Sure,” he says, “Last time Al was in Xing and there weren’t any good missions I just kinda spent a week learning--,”

“A  _ week _ ?” says Roy, and Ed gives him an exasperated look that is startlingly reminiscent of hi brother.

“Are you gonna stand there are make dumbass shocked comments or are you gonna give me the fuckin’ headset,  _ general _ ?” he says, and… fair enough. Roy surrenders the headset. 

Ed plucks it from his fingers and starts speaking in rapid, fluent Drachman, Roy’s fledgling vocabulary isn’t wide enough to follow him word-for-perfectly-pronounced-word, but he can keep up: Ed is telling the person on the other end that the two Amestrians had headed North. He promises to keep them updated, and then he’s done, switching off the mic and tucking the headset into his coat. 

Roy gives him an expectant look. Ed says, “I think they fell for it, but we should leave; like, now.”

“Should we really take the headset with us?” Roy asks, “What if they’re tracking it?”

Ed frowns, pulling it out of his coat and inspecting it. Roy can see tiny, exquisitely detailed arrays etches into the metal on the earphones. “Fuck, you’re right,” he says, with extreme malcontent. “Aw, shit; I wanted to show this to Al. The arrays are different to our wireless sets.” 

“We could--,” starts Roy, and then Ed is tossing the headset off the edge of the piste and they watch it as it falls, strangely graceful, and hits the snow and tumbles out of sight. 

“It’s cool,” Ed says, “I got it memorised.” he grins up a Roy and does he  _ know _ ? Is he aware of the utterly disarming effect he has; does he realise that every secretary, every new recruit, every member of his grudgingly-taught martial arts class at Central Headquarters is madly in love with him? Because either he genuinely has  _ no clue _ \-- which Roy could’ve believed five years ago, maybe, but he’s nearly twenty-one now and the obliviousness he inhabited like a second skin in his late teens has more or less fallen away by now--  or he’s  _ fully  _ aware of what he’s doing and furthermore is doing it  _ on purpose _ . 

Roy is not sure which he finds more frightening. Possibly the second one. 

 

Ed, evidently, is not waiting around for Roy to drag himself out of his crisis, because he holds the eye contact for several more dizzying seconds before turning-- hair rippling out behind him like a banner-- and bounding away down the path. “C’mon, slowpoke,” he calls over his shoulder, “You keep dawdling, we’re  _ never  _ gonna fucking find Al and Hawkeye.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


“Fucking--  _ drive _ -!” Ed yelled, leaning out of the window, dangerously close to tipping out and Roy had had barely  _ any  _ experience of driving on Central’s icy  _ roads _ , let alone through  _ snowdrifts,  _ and this was going so much more worse than he’d expected--

Ed aimed, fired, and one of the trucks screeching after them veered off wildly to the side, front tires blown. Ed made a wordless crowing sound of victory, and took aim at the other vehicle now gaining speed worryingly fast--

There was a cliff edge in front of them. No amount of wild steering was going to save them, but even so; Roy yelled a warning to Ed and twisted the wheel sharply; tired skidded on ice and the brakes were shot to hell, and, “Fuck,” said Roy, very succinctly. Ed dropped back into his seat with a thud, hair a magnificent tumble. Roy was grateful, at least, that this vision of windtossed glory would be the last thing he sees before he dies.

Ed opened his mouth, still distracted by the trucks behind. “Did you just--,”

“Ed,” said Roy, gripping the steering wheel with white-knuckled hands, “If we don’t come back from this--,”

And Ed had noticed the edge, now, eyes widening and sharply, sweetly gold--

“No,” he said, steel in his voice and fire in his eyes, “No fucking way. I’m not fucking dying like  _ this, Roy _ \--,” and he yanked the wheel out of Roy’s grip and  _ spun _ . 

  
  
  


“Well,” said Roy later, bound and blindfolded in the trunk of the rebel car, “We didn’t die, at least.”

Ed kicked him savagely. Roy made a sound of protest-- he thought he’d made a fair point, all things considered. 

“Yeah, asshole, we didn’t  _ die  _ ‘cause  _ I  _ saved both our asses from going over a fucking cliff edge!” Ed spat out. 

“I did thank you for that,” said Roy, cheek pressed to the uncomfortable carpeting. “And I meant it. You saved us. I do believe I owe you my life.”

“So stop trying to throw it away and  _ learn to drive _ ,” Ed said, still spitting sparks, then, mercifully directed away from Roy, “ _ Fuck _ .”    
There was a flurry of movement, and Ed  _ growled, _ irate. 

“What?” Roy asked, struggling to sit up and succeeding only in smacking his head on the trunk lid.

Ed made a noise of immense frustration. “I can’t-- fucking-- just  _ hang on _ \--,”

 

The car swerved and Roy groaned as he hit the wall. The blindfold obscuring his vision was bringing back several more-than-unpleasant memories-- endless darkness; darkness so bottomless you could drown in it; the terror of  _ not knowing  _ and above it all, endless, the knowledge that the people he loved were fighting all around him, that any moment Riza could  _ die  _ and he’d be standing there with no idea what had happened-- 

He tried for the fifth time to tug it off, but it was bound too tightly and the knots were  _ hideous _ ; Roy gritted his teeth and tried to focus on his other senses as he worked at the bindings.    
Smell: car-leather, cold snow, Ed. Taste: copper, blooming bright; apparently he’d bitten his tongue. Sound: Ed growling and muttering and shifting around like butter in a pan, the thrumming engine, distant voices speaking in rapid Drachman that was too fast for Roy’s swimming head to follow and oh, yes, he’d been knocked unconscious, hadn’t he? He vaguely remembered a black boot coming down to snap his head to the side, the resigned sense of  _ not again  _ before everything had gone-- mercifully?-- black. Touch: the scratchy carpet, the hard press of the walls; it was too cramped, and Roy had never been claustrophobic but this was pushing it… and of course, Ed, twisting and wriggling and bumping into Roy every time he did so.    
  


“What are you  _ doing _ ?” Roy asked, keeping his voice steady and light by sheer force of will, because the darkness was threatening to drown him and the blindfold was too--  _ fucking _ tight. 

There were a few more wordless moments of activity as Ed thumped into the walls and the ceiling and Roy as he attempted to do...whatever the hell he was trying to do. Concussions, as Roy probably could have guessed, did not seem to make Ed sluggish in the slightest-- the opposite, in fact. 

Then, a victorious hiss: “Yes!” 

Using his bound hands to lever himself somewhat off the floor, Roy turned his head in the direction of the movement and said, “Fullmetal, I’m not really enjoying being kept in the dark right now, pardon the pun--,”

There was a metallic scraping sound, and a quiet  _ click _ . 

Ed said, “I am a fucking  _ genius _ .”

Roy said, “I’m aware. What did you do?”

Rustling. Pain, briefly, as Ed leaned his entire body weight on Roy’s left calf. Then Ed’s hair is hanging over his face, tickling his nose, and Ed said, “I picked the lock on the handcuffs. Alright, stay still and I’ll do yours.”

He was a  _ genius _ ! But-- “Blindfold first,” said Roy, and it was a miracle that it came out sounding normal. Or as close to normal as one could achieve, trussed up and stuffed in the back of a moving vehicle. 

There was a very brief pause in which Roy did his best not to revel too much in the heat of Ed’s breath on his face, and then Ed was tugging at the knots at the back of the blindfold, swearing filthily under his breath, without comment. 

When it comes off, Roy took a few moment to blink hard, until the shifting darkness dissolved into a darker, Ed-shaped blob visible against the rest. By this time Ed had already finished picking the lock on Roy’s cuffs with lightning speed, and then he was massaging his wrists. What little light there was in the trunk, filtering in in tiny amounts from the seam of the lid, seemed to be magnetically attracted to Ed and only Ed. Like a cat, his eyes glowed almost  _ luminescent  _ in the shadows, eerily beautiful. 

“Alright,” he said, “How the fuck are we gonna get out of here?”

Roy flexed his fingers. “I could probably melt the lid,” he offered. “Or cause a localised explosion.”

“Or you could kill us both,” Ed offered, sounding far too relaxed about the possibility. “Maybe I could kick it hard enough to bust it open,” said Ed, eyeing the lid thoughtfully. Then he shook his head, and looked critically at Roy. “If I draw you an array, will you be able to activate it?”   
  


Roy raised an eyebrow at him. “If you tell me what it’s for,” he said, “I have no idea. Yes?”

With one last sweeping gaze-- Roy felt as though his very insides are being analysed and quantified by the sheer intensity of Ed’s eyes-- Ed made a dismissive gesture, like  _ eh, whatever _ and wriggled to get close enough to put his hand on the lid.    
  


“‘Kay,” he says after a second, “Got it. Alright, this is just a simple molding array; we’re not even transmuting the material into something else, just changing the shape. It’s...I’m pretty sure it’s mostly steel, and the locking mechanism almost definitely will be, so that’s what I’ll use…”

Roy was about to ask what Ed was going to use to draw the array, but he was tugging his glove off with his teeth--  _ that _ was an image Roy didn’t need, but would very much relish in great detail later, when they’ve gotten out of here and he’s back in the privacy of his own home...-- and biting down hard, blood welling in the soft pad of his thumb. 

“Ed-,” Roy started, moving forwards to help, to heal; though he didn’t know exactly what he would  _ do _ , and Ed waved him off, a shining figure in the dark. 

“Chill out, Mustang,” he said, “Didn’t even hurt.” And then he was drawing, sweeping lines in his own blood, and Roy remembered the soul-binding seal on the armour Alphonse used to wear…

 

It’s fascinating, to watch Edward Elric set his extraordinary mind to work on a problem; to watch him take it apart piece by piece and dissect it until he knows exactly how it works and exactly how he’s going to solve it, then watch him fit it back together again and present the finished solution; flawless, gift-wrapped, and all done in less than three minutes.

Roy remembered him saying once, in the office after he’d helped Breda close a case for some minor yet baffling crime, “I like puzzles”. As if that was a completely fine and usual explanation for how and why the  _ hell _ he’d been able to piece the evidence together, and almost entirely by accident-- he’d seen the case file lying around, read it because he was bored, tagged along to the crime scene to avoid handing in his latest report and had it solved the same day. 

Really, after eight years Roy should have been used to it. Ed was a goddamn genius with a razor sharp mind that was almost constantly twelve steps ahead of everyone around him. He just seemed to operate on a higher level than everyone else, despite being what Roy called  _ frighteningly oblivious _ and what his brother called  _ in denial about...some things, Brother _ . 

 

“Nice,” Ed said after a few swift moments, and scooted backwards. His leg was warm against Roy’s side. “Right, just put your hand there and focus on  _ steel _ .”

The car jolted, shunting them into each other as Roy leaned forwards; with Ed pressed against him, hair tickling Roy’s face, his fingertips brushed the circle, still wet with Ed’s blood. 

_ Steel _ , he thought.  _ The curve of the lid, bending and melding away, breaking upwards and open...carbon, silicon, phosphorus, iron, manganese, sulfur, chromium, nickel, molybdenum, copper…. No different from the curve and swoop of a flame, really; no different from the backwards arc of heat rushing away and above the fire… _

 

The boot of the trunk burst open, assaulting snow-reflected light forcing through, blinding; Ed didn’t hesitate, just  _ moved,  _ dragging Roy out after him with one hand fisted in his lapel. The cold was like a punch to the chest but there was no time to dwell on that when the car was screeching to a halt: apparently their escape hadn’t gone unnoticed. Beside him, Ed’s eyes narrowed, hair whipping around his face, loose from his ponytail and caught as tendrils on the wind. As Roy raised his hands, poised to snap, he took in Ed’s visage as if with brand new eyes. His hair is mussed and all but escaped from its ponytail; he had a smudge of blood on his forehead, bright against his skin and the gold of his hair and the sterile white blank surroundings. 

The doors opened before the truck had fully stopped; Roy caught the gleam of the snowlight reflected off the barrel of a gun and then Ed was moving, running  _ towards  _ the car…

Roy snapped and flames danced over the top of the car; the roof glowed, molten and the passengers tumbled out, four of them armed to the teeth but out in the open, now, and it was as if he and Ed were working in tandem: Ed didn’t even hesitate, just tackled the one nearest to him and they went down in a heap of limbs and violence, and Roy was already snapping his fingers, a jet of fire arcing over the hard-packed snow. 

The fight was quick, but brutal. There was an alchemist with them who threw up walls and spikes; jagged stone punching through ice and spraying flecks of snow, obscuring Roy’s view of everyone else. But he hadn’t trained for years in one of the most difficult disciplines of alchemy to be beaten by a Bradley supporter in a terrible snowsuit, so instead Roy did what he did best: he won.

  
  


When it was over, and the snow had settled, Ed appeared from behind the car grinning, breathing only very slightly elevated. He’d somehow gotten his hands on a gun, but Roy hadn’t heard any gunfire. At his questioning look, Ed tossed it into a snowdrift. 

“No ammo,” he said, by way of reply, and glanced around at the fallen, unconscious soldiers. 

“No mortalities,” returned Roy.    
Since opening the gate of truth, he’d been able to perform other types of alchemy without arrays; he just preferred not to. It still felt-- strange, wrong; there were higher risks of something going wrong without the guiding focus of an array. In this fight, though, Roy had been hard pressed for a better option. He wouldn’t use his flame alchemy to kill anyone else. Not unless he absolutely had to. 

  
  


In the end, they decided to leave the rebel soldiers trussed in the back of the car. Leaning in, Ed snatched his knives from the backseat, sliding them with a  _ snick  _ into sheaths hidden in his jacket, and then it was just the two of them and the ice and the boundless sky. 

 

“So,” said Roy as Ed tugged his hair back up into a ponytail, “Any idea which way is South?”

Ed stared at him, stared around as if waiting for Alphonse to jump out and say  _ surprise, brother! We’re here!  _ and, when no such event happened, said, “I can’t believe this is happening to me.”

“Really, Fullmetal,” Roy said, because life was short and suffering almost constant, and what was the point if he couldn’t even have a little bit of fun with this? “I can think of at least  _ fifty  _ secretaries who would kill to be stuck out in the wilderness alone with me.”

“Oh, go  _ fuck  _ yourself _ , _ ” Ed said, and started speed-walking towards a distant, blueish line of mountains rising out of the haze in the distance. 

Roy allowed himself a moment to smile at his retreating back, ponytail flowing down like silk, and set out after him. 

 

* * *

 

 

 “My legs are gonna fucking  _ fall off _ ,” says Ed. “Well. Leg,” he amends. “The automail will prob’ly keep going for a while. But do you see this issue, Mustang! We’ve been walking for  _ fucking ever _ .”

“Not for  _ ever _ , surely,” says Roy drily, but he doesn’t really want to argue about this. He’s as exhausted as Ed is. They trudge to a stop and immediately the lack of motion makes Roy painfully aware of all the things he’s been trying to ignore: his numb toes, his freezing-yet-burning legs, the shivers wracking his frame, his chattering teeth and the wind chafing at his skin. Ed catches his horrified expression and doesn’t say anything, simply points at him, as if to say  _ now do you see what I mean? _

“Shelter,” says Roy, hopping up and down on the spot. “Now.”

“Alright, your  _ majesty _ ,” Ed mutters, crouching down to draw the array. He grins. “Or should I say, your  _ Roy _ al highness,”

“Hilarious,” says Roy. “So hilarious that I’m shaking with laughter. Oh, no, wait-- that’s the hypothermia.”

“Actually, shivering stops when hypothermia reaches the worst stages,” says Ed absently, and looks up. “Also, you’re a fucking dumbass. C’mon then, activate the array before we  _ both  _ freeze.”

 

Roy does so gladly, forming them another small, dubious-but-functional igloo, and due to sheer necessity and desperation, they have a fire set up within two minutes. 

"We’re getting quite good at this,” Roy muses, huddling as close to the fire as he can possibly get. His hands are worryingly bloodless.   
Ed tears open the wrapper of a military-issue emergency indeterminable foodstuff with his teeth, and stuffs it into his mouth whole. Roy despairs of the fact that he can somehow still find Ed stunningly, overwhelming attractive despite this, and fishes in his own pocket for his emergency rations. 

“Yeah, I guess,” Ed says, muffled through his mouthful of food, and Roy raises his eyebrows as he unwraps his own energy bar. “ _ What _ ?” Ed shoots at him, eyes narrowed, and Roy raises his hands.   
“Nothing, nothing,” he says, “Just being acutely reminded of your unorthodox childhood, that’s all.”  
  
“You mean I don’t have any fucking manners,” says Ed flatly, “ _ That’s  _ what you mean. Well, fuckin’ news for you, Mustang, I--  _ ow _ .” He frowns, pressing one hand suddenly to his side. 

“What?” asks Roy, attempting to massage the mere pretence of heat back into his fingertips before he is forced to perform emergency field amputation on himself. Or have Ed do it, which would probably be infinitely worse, despite Roy trusting him unequivocally with his life. Which...is something he hasn’t actually allowed himself to  _ think _ before, so, wonderful, now Roy has this worrying development to worry about, on top of frostbite and other mundane we-are-stranded-in-an-icy-hellscape-in-gear-not-meant-for-such-long-periods-of-exposure issues--

“What the fuck,” says Ed, shrugging out of his heavy overcoat and tugging his jacket to the side, “Did that fucker actually  _ cut  _ me?”

Every particle of liquid in Roy’s body freezes into jagged crystals. 

 

“You are  _ fucking  _ kidding me,” Ed says, and the crystalline structures in Roy’s veins have started to splinter agonisingly, but all that’s left on Ed’s face is  _ indignation _ at the loom of dark blood spreading over his side. 

“Mother _ fucker _ ,” he continues. “I didn’t think it actually go  _ though _ .”   
  


Okay, this is fine. This is fine. Roy can do first aid.  _ Ed  _ can do first aid. And there’s blood, but the amount is-- fine, it’s manageable. Ed isn’t bleeding to death. Yet. “We need to stop the bleeding,” he says, unwinding his bandanna, “Take off your shirt.”

Ed gives him the beginnings of a crooked grin, but it falters when he catches the look in Roy’s eyes. 

“Hey,” he says, complying, “it’s okay, Mustang; it’s not deep.”

_ You know, when I imagine you shirtless, there’s a lot less blood involved and generally some kind of bed,  _ Roy definitely does  _ not  _ say. Instead, he leans over, tugs one of Ed’s knives out of his discarded coat, and slashes a strips out of the bandanna.

“That doesn’t mean it’s not serious,” he says, and Ed is shivering, automail a gleaming work of art, and he shifts closer to the fire. The blood is dark, wet red in the flickering light. Ed swallows. 

“Not sure I trust you near my injuries, General,” he says. 

Roy says, “Do you mean that?”

Ed says, “No.”   
  


His voice is low, which just the edge of roughness as if it caught on his throat as he let the words fall out; there is something hallowed, surreal, like a confession about this and Roy is not at  _ all  _ equipped to deal with it, especially not with the firelight cast warm, warm gold on Ed’s skin. Darkness has fallen soundlessly outside, and now that the shadows are lengthening the light bathing Ed’s skin is breathtaking-- all this skin, and it’s  _ freezing  _ and he’s going to catch fucking, pneumonia or something;  _ fuck _ \--

Roy reaches for the coat, lifting it and draping it carefully around Ed’s shoulders-- one smooth tanned skin, one bright gleaming metal, both perfect and Roy  _ aches _ …

 

“Hang on,” says Ed, using the knife to tear another piece of material out of Roy’s ex-bandanna; he scoops up a metal handful of snow and soaks the cloth. “Ever since he got back from Xing, Al won’t stop going on about all the, like, rare untreatable diseases he learned about,” he says grin half-stable half-shaky but holding firm in the foundations. His jaw tightens as he uses the cloth to mop up the worst of the blood. “ _ Fuck  _ this is freezing.”

“Hah,” says Roy, and at Ed’s  _ what the fuck are you going on about  _ look, he explains, “Freezing. Snow. It’s ice. Come on, Fullmetal, I know you know this…”

“Oh, my god,” Ed mutters, tossing the bloody cloth aside and poking with casual interest at the now-slightly-cleaner wound, “you’re such a fucking  _ dweeb _ . I hate this. C’mon, then; patch me up or whatever.”

Of course, the main event. The whole reason Ed has his shirt off, other than looking like a classical  _ god _ . Roy has to shift closer to inspect the wound and decide the best way to go about this. 

The cut itself  _ isn’t  _ deep, just… inconvenient. It’s a long sharp slash across the ribs and Roy’s arms encircle Ed’s waist momentarily as he wraps the cloth around in a makeshift bandage and knots it tightly in the front. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, because they’ve been silent for far too long. “Alphonse no doubt would have been able to fix this alchemically, but--,”

“Eh, this’ll do,” says Ed, and his grin is like the first rays of summer sun. “God knows I’ve done  _ much  _ worse jobs.” He shrugs, and of course the movement draws Roy’s eyes immediately to the languid roll of muscle in his half-covered shoulders. Shit. He looks away before Ed can make eye contact again and he loses all the self control he prides himself on so much; instead, he turns to the fire and, snapping his fingers, watches it leap higher and brighter. 

 

“Thanks,” says Ed into the quiet. Roy looks at him. 

“For being such excellent company?”

Ed rolls his eyes. “Fuck off. For sacrificing your precious bandanna,or whatever.”

“I’ll take it out of your wages,” Roy says. 

“No, you won’t,” says Ed. “You wouldn’t deprive me ‘n Al of our rent money.”

“The cost of a  _ scarf  _ covers your rent?” Roy says dubiously. “If that’s the case, I don’t think you have anything to complain about.”

Ed drags his shirt over his head, and the stretch of his muscles as he raises his arms is possibly the single most transcendent sight Roy has ever been subject to in his  _ life _ . “Do you  _ ever  _ shut up?” he asks, muffled by the material, “Just wonderin’.”   
“Only if Riza holds me at gunpoint,” Roy admits, and Ed laughs, delighted, head popping up over the collar. He pulls on his coat, shuffling ever closer to the fire and blows out a gust of breath that condenses to vapour in midair. 

“Y’know, you’re kinda funny sometimes,” he says. 

“...Thank you?” Did he die and by some miracle end up in heaven? If so, Roy needs to have  _ serious _ words with god about his morals. 

Ed nods. “You’re welcome.”

 

This close, his eyes are hypnotising. Granted, his eyes are hypnotising even from halfway across the office-- the amount of times in the past year that Roy’s caught himself staring is embarrassingly high. 

“Is there a reason you’re paying me compliments, Fullmetal?” Roy asks, striving for normalcy and only falling short a very little bit. “Are you about to ask me for a gargantuan favour?”

“You called me ‘Ed’ before,” says Ed, offhand. 

Roy pauses. 

“Did I,” he says. What-- is Ed actually….trying to  _ outplay  _ him? Roy...has lost all sense of what the hell is going on. 

“Yup,” says Ed, nodding easily, unreadable eyes trained on Roy’s. He licks his lips, somehow passing it off as a casual gesture-- his tongue flicking out just a  _ little  _ too slow to be uncalculated, his bottom lip full and plush and.... Stop. No. Definitely not. 

“That wasn’t very professional of me,” says Roy carefully. 

“It sure wasn’t,” Ed agrees. “To be fair, neither is me kissing you.”

Roy has heard stories, before, of people getting struck by lightning and describing a sudden white-out, a flash of pure blank nothingness before the scorch. Roy imagines it may be something like this.

 

“What?” he manages, eloquent. Ed sighs. 

“Look, Mu--  _ Roy _ . I’m not fucking stupid, you get that, right? I’ve  _ caught  _ you looking at me, like, five  _ hundred  _ fucking times and, yo, I’m here to tell you: it’s mutual. This shit’s reciprocated.” He makes a throwaway gesture, ungloved automail catching the light and holding it there. Ed raises his eyebrows. “I’m not the kinda person to sit around and  _ wait  _ for something to happen, an’ I figure you aren’t either. So.”   
He tilts his chin up, defiant. His eyes dare Roy to do something. Anything. 

“I’m your Commanding Officer,” Roy begins and Ed cuts him off with a bitter laugh.

“Come on, Mustang, you and I both know that has  _ nothing  _  to do with this,” he says, and looks away, face twisting. “If you don’t fucking want to just  _ say  _ so,” he says, brusque; “I hate it when people do this; make up fucking-- excuses instead of getting to the fucking  _ point-- _ ,”

“Ed,” says Roy. He leans forward, catches Ed’s hand, skin against skin. Ed stares at him, motionless, torn between pulling away and staying and clearly waiting to see what Roy would say next. 

 

What are they doing? 

 

“I want this,” says Roy, and it gives away far too much; the depth of his sincerity and what if Ed isn’t interested in-- more? In a relationship?  _ Of course he’s not _ , says the sneering voice in the back of Roy’s head that always seems to sound like fucking Bradley, these days.  _ Why would he be? With a killer like you? _

Ed looks down at their joined hands. Slowly, steadily ignoring the voice in the back of his mind, Roy threads their fingers together. “I want this,” he says again, low and real.

“I believe you,” says Ed at last, and then he’s shaking his head as if coming to a decision, and his other hand is coming up to graze Roy’s cheek; cold but he barely notices--

And then Ed is tugging him down into a bruising kiss, and-- well. Lightning.

Surrounded by the snow and both of them exhausted, but this, here, now; the desperate slide of their lips and Ed’s hands pulling Roy firmly down; this matters more than the guttering fire, than the dying light.

“The rumours are-- fucking--  _ true _ ,” says Ed with a gasp, and Roy despite the circumstances Roy smiles, smooth and satisfied, against his mouth. 

“Is that  _ so _ ,” he purrs, and Ed makes a sound of  _ I fucking hate you _ and tugs him in again. 

  
They kneel in the snow and the ice, walls pressing in around them, warm only where they’re touching (lips and cheeks and chest-to-chest and hands, burning all over, everywhere) and where they’re touching there is fire, so complete Roy has to open his eyes to check that they’re not really on fire, that they haven’t managed to shuffle into the shrinking fire beside them.

“How long?” Roy breathes into the junction between Ed’s neck and jaw, and Ed tips his head back, breath hissing between his teeth. 

“Fucking--  _ years _ , Mustang,” he grits out. “But mainly-- last year. With the asshole general from West.”

Roy  _ remembers _ ; remembers the man, General Ashturn, remembers the imperious gaze he’d flicked over Roy’s team:  _ I’m visiting from West City. Would’ve thought they’d give you better...resources at Central Headquarters.  _ And, oh, Roy had hated him then but that had been nothing compared to the months later, a flurry of investigations and inquiries and Riza handing him a file that revealed everything, everything…

 

“The courtroom?” Roy asks, and he has to stop himself from leaving marks; Alphonse and Riza will know immediately anyway, of course they will but he won’t leave marks, won’t be  _ that  _ obvious no matter how badly he wants to make this last, make this into something tangible instead of something  _ just for now _ , forced by circumstance and mutual overwhelming tension--

“The  _ fucking  _ courtroom,” Ed confirms, reaching down and pulling Roy back up to his lips and his eyes are a dark gold work of art before he leans in and steals Roy’s soul right through his kiss: he bites down hard on Roy’s lip and Roy… is so far gone it’s beyond comical.

He remembers the courtroom, too, on the stand opposite a handcuffed Ashburn practically sweating rage, and Roy-- cool, calm and unshakeable-- had made sure to look his  _ best _ because Amestris was watching and if he was going to run for Fuhrer in a few years he may as well make a good impression on the masses…   
Ed had been there, too, forced into a suit by his brother with the rest of Roy’s team, and Roy remembers having genuine trouble focusing on testifying when Ed had been sitting just a few paces away and looking like  _ that _ . 

“Me, too,” Roy says, wondering, because that really was the first time he’d properly  _ realised _ ; had sneaked a glance back and thought,  _ my god, he looks incredible.  _ It was just typical that the epiphany had occurred in the midst of a very important trial-- typical, but also...strangely fitting.

Ed just kisses him again, with the same concentrated intensity that he exerts on everything he does, and again. And again.

Roy doesn’t know what will happen after this, when this ends, as all things must; when they set off again in the morning and the daylight brings with it every idea of why this is a bad, bad, bad idea. But he knows that right now, Edward Elric is kissing him, and nothing else could possibly matter over that.

  
  


Later, in the early hours-- the sun has begun to melt over the horizon, sliding up into the sky lazily, taking its slow, seeping time-- Roy’s eyelids are drifting shut when he feels it-- the prickly, uneasy sensation accompanied by  _ someone is coming _ ; not necessarily a sound or a sight to give them away but a bone-deep certainty that someone is approaching. 

He and Ed sit bolt upright at the same time. Roy doesn’t have to look at Ed to know that he feels it too. 

Silently, Ed draws his knives. Roy flexes his hands in his gloves. The tiny gap at the entrance to the shelter shows nothing but a strip of snow and sky. 

There is the crunch of a boot in ice, a snatch of voice whipping away on the wind, and Ed is up in a flash, kicking out the snow door. Roy is left stunned by the sudden explosion of movement, but only for a moment-- because he can hear Ed’s yell of “The fuck are you doing here, you  _ fucker _ ?” and Alphonse’s reply: “It’s good to see you, too, brother.”

Pulling himself out of the shelter, Roy braces a hand against the top of the igloo as he squints out at the snow. The sunrise seems brighter here, with all this snow for the sun to reflect off. Riza, standing a few paces away-- looking tired but uninjured, unharmed-- flicks her calm gaze from him to Ed and meets his eyes with a knowing glance. 

She says, “Good to see you’re still alive, sir.”

“Thank you, captain,” he replies, and sends her a look that says  _ please don’t kill me _ , and  _ it wasn’t my fault _ . 

She raises an eyebrow, but says nothing. 

“How did you find us?” Roy asks, turning his attention away from where Ed is now violently embracing his brother. 

Riza shakes her head. “Honestly? I don’t know. We were driving and just...stumbled onto the rebel base and phoned in for backup from Briggs.” Roy raises his eyebrows disbelievingly at this, and she smiles slightly. “They’ve mostly all been rounded up by a team of Drachman and Briggs soldiers. We requested a search party, who reported two cars and several tied up rebels fairly far from where you set off.”

“Ah,” says Roy, remembering. “Yes. An attempted kidnapping. Not particularly successful for them.”

“Yes, so we heard.” Riza gestures south, in the direction of Briggs, and says, “We have cars, courtesy of General Armstrong; Alphonse and I figured you were on foot; you couldn’t have gotten too far, so we started searching.”

“And here you are!” says Alphonse brightly, pulling his scowling brother behind him. “Are you injured also, General, or is it just my brother with the minor stab wound?”

His sunny tone does absolutely nothing to quell the fear that rises in Roy at the thought of being on the receiving end of Alphonse Elric’s discontent. 

“ _ Al _ ,  _ chill _ ,” says Ed, punching him in the arm. “Jeez. It’s  _ fine _ ; no one else is hurt; you guys caught the rebels on your own-- major badass points, by the way-- can we just go home now? I’m fucking sick of snow.”

 

Roy shares those sentiments,  _ dearly _ . But, alas… he clears his throat. “Unfortunately,” he says, “we have yet to actually complete the purpose of our trip here.”

“We’ll drive directly to the Drachman Imperial Palace, sir,” says Riza, gesturing to a snowy ridge some ways away, behind which Roy assumes the cars are parked, waiting. Real, comfortably seats! A vehicle in which no one is trying to kill them! Someone else other than Roy driving! In other words, pure bliss. 

Ed makes a sound like he’s dying. “The  _ diplomatic meeting _ ,” he whispers, in tones of great agony. Alphonse pats him unsympathetically on the back.

“You get to go, too,” he says, in bright and not at all comforting tones, “Considering how  _ fine  _ your minor stab wound is. Won’t that be fun, brother!”

 

As they start walking, Ed dragging pitifully behind and Riza leading the way forwards, Roy reflects that he should maybe get Alphonse a gift or something. Just to make sure he never, ever gets on his bad side.

They reach the cars; two gleaming white snow-worthy vehicles with strong non-skidding tires and bulletproof glass. Olivier may hate him, but the Fullmetal Alchemist, on the other hand, she owes a favour. Thank  _ god  _ Ed agreed to come along, Roy thinks feverishly, glimpsing the soft, padded seats on the inside.   
“Let’s get this over with,” he says, and Riza cuts him a sideways glance. 

“Perhaps take a shower first, sir,” she says, and holds open the car door. 

  
  
  
  
  


Roy pulls off the meeting; of course he does. It doesn’t matter that he’s running on very little sleep and ninety percent of his brain’s processing power is dedicated to Ed, and Ed, and Ed, and Ed. It doesn’t matter that he’s tearing himself to pieces over what he should do next, and what he should do after that; it doesn’t matter that he has plans to make and reports to file, because he’s General Roy Mustang, damn it. 

He’s walking through the halls of Fort Briggs on the way to the car-- another car; he’s spent so much in cars and in snow lately he’ll be glad if he never sees a mountain again, no matter how stunning they were-- that will take them to the train station, Riza at his side, and the meeting went flawlessly; which is really quite the miracle, considering, well, everything. So why can’t he just  _ relax _ ?

 

The one thing that Roy is glad about since arriving in Drachma days ago is that now that he’s in Briggs, at least Olivier seems to be ignoring him. Aside from a customary cool greeting and her gracious acceptance of Roy’s thanks and apologies for intruding when they’d first arrived yesterday, he hasn’t seen her at all. Part of him thinks this is a pity, because he’d have liked to have a chance to play the game; light remarks and careful mocking, always, always toeing the line… but he hasn’t seen a proper bed in  _ so long,  _ and he’s so tired, and-- preoccupied. With things.  _ Things.  _

 

“You’ll work it out, sir,” says Riza, quietly reassuring. She knows everything, of course, not that she’s said anything. Just knowing that she understands and is offering her support if and when he needs it is enough. He smiles at her, grateful, and scrubs a hand over his face. 

“I hope so, captain,” he says.

She nods to the guards on either side of the door when they exit the building. Roy asks them to give Olivier his regards, and follows Riza down the steps. The cold air is biting, but even more biting is the absence of Ed, his snarky comments, his careless sauntering grace. He and his brother had taken an earlier train after the meeting to catch an appointment with Miss Rockbell, who had sent a sternly-worded telegram containing a number of impressively creative threats that she would carry out should she find that Ed had damaged his winter automail, which caused Ed to pale in fear and Roy to suppress a laugh.    
He sighs. The Ed-shaped hole in the air is omnipresent and supremely annoying. Roy  _ misses  _ him, which is.... Both inconvenient and painful, and he  _ doesn’t know what to do about it.  _   
  


“Talk to him,” says Riza, and she doesn’t need to offer a name. “Sooner rather than later, please, sir; we need you back at work.”  _ And if you haven’t talked to him, you’ll be too miserable to work and we really, really  _ don’t  _ need that _ , she does not need to add. 

Roy busies himself with straightening the hem of his gloves, and nods slightly. “I will,” he says. “Never fear, captain. I will retain my usual charm and wit around the office.”

“There’s a difference between ‘retaining charm and wit’ and being content, sir,” she says quietly but firmly, and Roy fights the urge to gulp. 

“I know,” he replies, as they reach their car; “You said it yourself. It’ll all work out.”

  
  
  
  


Three days later and Edward Elric is standing in Roy’s office, the door shut behind him, a vision of breathless anger and narrowed eyes, and for a few moments Roy can do nothing but stare up at him from behind his desk. 

“You’re supposed to be in the hospital,” he says finally. Ed shakes his head like a disgruntled horse, and says, 

“I left early.  _ Fuck  _ the hospital; I fucking hate it there.” 

“And your first instinct was to come here?” Roy asks lightly. He hasn’t done what Riza said. His excuse had been paperwork; filing reports and giving statements to the press, but really he’d had several opportunities to visit Ed at the hospital over the past few days, and he just….hadn’t. Couldn’t. 

Ed is still staring at him, puzzling him out. If he finds any answers, Roy would like to know them, too. 

Eventually, Roy is about to open his mouth to break the silence and ask what Ed is  _ really  _ doing here-- but Ed gets there first. He does it without ceremony, though Roy can’t say it was utterly without warning. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out his silver watch, and tosses it onto the desk in front of Roy. 

It clatters, bounces, and spins for a moment, light flashing white off the metal, before it stills. 

Roy looks from the watch to Ed, and waits.

“There,” says Ed, lifting his chin. “I’m done. I’m out.” His eyes are heavy and bright on Roy’s face, and under the weight of that gaze he feels very, very small. “Now it’s your turn, Mustang.” 

“Ed…” says Roy, because there are  _ so many  _ reasons why this is a bad idea and there’s so much that can and will go wrong, and Ed deserves so much  _ better  _ than that. Than him. 

“No,” says Ed, sparking, and the way his eyes light up with ferocity will never, ever fail to take Roy’s goddamn breath away, “No, shut the fuck up. I get it. Okay? I  _ get  _ it. You’re not as good at acting as you think you are, Roy Mustang; and I’m telling you right now that it’s pretty fucking simple. I’m not in the military anymore. I’m  _ free _ . And I...wanna do this. With you.” He lifts his chin, determined if he’s ever been before, stares Roy straight in the eyes, unflinching.

The room feels suddenly far too small, his throat far too tight to accommodate the oxygen scraping its way along his airways, and Ed has always made him feel so very, very tiny in comparison…

Roy swallows. 

“Are you sure?” he asks. 

Ed raises his eyes to the ceiling. “ _ Am I sure _ . Of course I’m fucking  _ sure _ ; d’you really think I’d  _ be  _ here if I wasn’t?”

“Ed,” says Roy, quiet and serious, and Ed’s eyes drop down to his immediately. Roy clears his throat. “I have....baggage,” he says, which is more or less the biggest understatement he's ever said aloud. “I’ve done things I’m not proud of, Ed, and I  _ know  _ you understand, but-- don’t you think you deserve someone, something-- better? More...I don’t know,  _ normal _ ?”  _ Complete _ , he doesn’t say, because Ed will take it as a reference to the automail, when really Ed is the most complete, whole person Roy has ever met; and it is Roy who is breaking into little pieces, day after treacherous, toiling day. 

  
He really is remarkably fast. Ed has crossed the room in a heartbeat, and Roy only just manages to stop himself from leaning back in surprise as Ed  _ slams  _ his hands on the desk. In the other room, all conversation ceases, then starts up again, significantly louder. 

“No,” says Ed through gritted teeth, “actually;  _ no _ , and fuck you for thinking you get any say in what I  _ deserve _ . You think I can just-- settle down with some fucking civilian? After everything?  _ No _ . I don’t-- I  _ can’t _ do that.” He shakes his head, hands curling into fists on the polished wood of the desk. When his eyes meet Roy’s again they are as vivid as melted butter, as open and honest as only Ed can ever be. “I want  _ you _ ,” he says, like the words are a weapon. 

 

Slowly, carefully, Roy reaches up and sweeps his thumb over Ed’s cheekbone. It only lasts a moment, but Ed leans into the touch, eyes flickering. 

“You need to give me an answer,” Ed says, low and rough. 

Roy tracks his gaze over Ed’s face, takes it all in: the set of his jaw, his brows lowered as if preparing for a fight to the death; his gorgeous honeyed eyes, the dark sweep of his lashes like lines of soot. 

Ed has saved Roy’s life countless times. Ed is irritating and obnoxious and impossible; Ed is  _ terrifyingly  _ intelligent and will fight without hesitation and against overwhelming odds for the people he loves; Ed drives Roy utterly, unfathomably insane on a  _ daily  _ basis, and the truth, the indubitable truth, is that Roy is head over fucking heels in love with him. 

But he can’t say all that, so instead he cups Ed’s cheek, his throat aching, and says, “Of course I want to. Of course I will.”

 

Ed leans down and kisses him. 

It’s their second kiss, a world away from the ice and blood and cloying fear of the first; undeniably sweeter and yet Ed still makes it into a battle, because of  _ course  _ he does; how could he not? He bites at Roy’s lower lip, winds metal fingers in his hair and tugs, and Roy returns the favour. Ed makes a sound into his mouth and Roy swallows it. 

 

There is still a conversation that needs to be had-- Roy is determined not to let this be ruined; he is going to do the  _ right;  _ there will be no room for miscommunication, for meaningless, worthless fights, because Ed deserves the universe and all Roy has to offer is himself, but he will do his best to make it equivalent. 

There are days ahead; weeks and months and maybe-- and the flame of hope in Roy’s chest hasn’t been snuffed out yet, not quite-- even  _ years _ , in which to learn each other, to map out scars and stories and marks and secrets, to memorise each others’ heartbeats. Roy looks forwards to it.    
For now, there is this: Ed’s lips on his, Roy’s hands sliding through Ed’s hair. The people they love in the next room, and the silver watch on the desk, the resignation forms in the drawer. 

No more snow, thinks Roy as he kisses Ed slow and deep and sincere. No more  _ goddamn  _ snow. 

 

“It’s good t’ be back,” says Ed, drawing back just an inch to draw breath. He’s grinning, the edge of it tugging at his cheeks, and Roy smiles back at him, runs a hand through his hair, and agrees. It is. 

  
  
  
  


 


End file.
